Washington University is the 13th-ranked school in the country. Why does it feel like we’re the 400th most widely known school? Simply put, Wash. U. has done a terrible job with name recognition outside the U.S. Whether it’s the job market or someone’s grandmother on the East Coast, we don’t get nearly the respect that we deserve. The U.S. News & World Report ranks us ahead of both Cornell and Brown Universities. If you were to say either of those names to a random person on the street, you’d get, “Wow, that’s a great school!” If you say, “I go to Washington University in St. Louis,” half the time you get a blank stare. If you were to list off any other school in the top 30, you would get a nod and smile validating the caliber of the institution you attend. So what’s our deal? Why can’t we manage to get anyone to know who we are? It’s a serious problem.

I believe that a significant reason we don’t have a widespread brand name is due to the fact that in the last 10 years, this school has skyrocketed to the top of the rankings and is now finally an elite institution. The relatively recent ascent to greatness doesn’t excuse anything, however. One problem is the name of the school. Washington University in St. Louis is just cumbersome. If you shorten it to Washington University, people say “George Washington?” or “How’s the weather out in the Northwest?” And then you want to slap yourself in the forehead and scream, “I go to a top 15 school, you ignoramus! Why don’t you know what I’m talking about?” People other than Midwesterners and mothers with kids applying to college need to know how great of a school Wash. U. is.

It’s not only upsetting for students in the sense that we often are frustrated by our relative anonymity, but this situation is also detrimental to our careers. While we often draw recruiters from medical and biotech engineering powerhouses, our name remains relatively unknown in the realms of banking and consulting. After I talked with several alumni who have been back on campus for recruitment this past week, it came to my attention that Wash. U. students are often thrown under the proverbial recruitment bus because of the lack of name recognition in the industry. When a Wall Street powerhouse looks at University of Michigan students as top five candidates, there should be no reason that we are left behind to fight for the scraps. The student body here is incredibly intelligent, and its members should not have to explain why they chose to go to Wash. U. over another school in an interview. They should be able to proudly state their alma mater to any recruiter. And that recruiter should be impressed, not confused.

In response to this issue, we need to concentrate on a massive marketing and PR campaign. I don’t know if changing our school’s name is the move, although Danforth University is catchy, but there are several methods with which the administration can approach this problem. Take out an enormous ad on the back of The Wall Street Journal. Put some impressive statistics on there. When alumni come back to recruit, you should be talking to the administration about these issues and working with them. Lastly, and this is more difficult, we should try and recruit some high-profile administrators in the fields in which we struggle to make ourselves known. A dean from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania or Harvard University would make quite a splash.

I don’t mean to criticize Wash. U.’s undergraduate experience. In fact, the caliber of that experience and education is the reason that I am so irritated by the inability of our brand to move alongside our ranking. We won’t become famous overnight, but we can certainly start to take steps in that direction.